


White Noise

by magicianlogician12



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, pre-SWTOR timeline, really just a short character exploration of one of my many non-canon OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 15:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19467028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magicianlogician12/pseuds/magicianlogician12
Summary: Tython is too quiet, not from the noise, but from the people.





	White Noise

Tython is too quiet.

There is noise, of course, and Isovele hears it in the walls every night she spends in the dormitories. There is the noise of footsteps, of quiet, hushed whispers, of robes shifting as their owners move. There are things she hears with her ears and with the Force, and its white noise might be soothing to some, but it feels like a lie to her.

It feels like the breath held before a shout. The quiet before everything breaks loose, loud and chaotic.

Tython is too quiet, not from the noise, but from the _people._

On Nar Shaddaa, the people are loud, they are vibrantly and violently _alive_ , fighting for everything they have and everything they want. There is nothing on that world offered up on a silver platter, not even to those with real, genuine power, not power like Isovele’s. Here, on Tython, the people are nice, polite, some might even call them kind, but they are not _alive_ , not really.

What this world needs, Isovele thinks, is a little rebellion. A harmless one, a small one, but something to know that a heart still beats in it somewhere.

She starts with the holoprojector. It takes several nights of tinkering with it to make it connect to the datapad she borrowed from the library when Master Surik wasn’t looking, several more to make the datapad connect to off-world channels on the holonet. Her lessons suffer, but her masters always chalk it up to her _situation_ , and her subterfuge goes unnoticed.

Next, she spreads rumors. A whisper here, a suggestion there, that _something_ might be happening soon in the main holoprojector room in a week, it _might_ be something fun, _maybe_ just a little against the rules, but what the masters don't know won’t hurt them, right?

She’s almost caught the night before, doing a test run of the files she’s downloaded onto her borrowed datapad in anticipation. Master Paros walks in with her blonde hair tied in its four neat sections and a braid wrapped around the bun atop her head, and asks, “Miss Namore, is there a reason you’re outside your bunk at this hour?”

“They said the terminal was having trouble earlier today,” the lie slips out easily, and Isovele smooths her presence in the Force, hoping it doesn’t feel _too_ slick, too suspicious, “and I thought I’d see if I could fix it.”

“The mechanics were going to investigate tomorrow,” Master Paros raises a brow, just visible over her eye mask, “but if you believe you can have it done before then, by all means. Don’t be awake too much longer.”

Then she’s mercifully gone, and Isovele lets out a breath, returning to her work with a grim line to her mouth.

On Nar Shaddaa, doing the people who pulled you out of a nasty situation a bad turn is considered bad luck, but Master Paros pulling her out of the hole the Exchange kept her in for over a decade doesn’t mean she owes the Jedi anything more than polite acknowledgement, a point the Jedi herself has emphasized a lot. Far be it from Isovele to argue the point.

Her datapad chimes, and Isovele quickly disconnects and pockets it, heading to her bunk, just a breath before midnight.

Her lessons suffer again the following morning, but it will be worth it, she thinks, it _must_ be worth it, there must be _some_ life on this planet willing to bend the rules a little for the sake of something fun.

Evening comes and finds Isovele hiding in the corridors with a snack instead of dinner, waiting for her fellow students to appear, _hoping_ to some degree that part of her finds ludicrous that this won’t have all been for nothing. It shouldn’t matter, because Isovele has had far more important things to worry about in her life than her _popularity_ , but that’s not even what this is about, really.

It’s about reminding herself–and them, the fellow Jedi, too–that there’s still some life out there, some heart, some _fire_ in these people. Not like hers–hers is the kind of fire that makes the masters talk urgently, grimly, in low voices when they think she can’t hear–but enough. Enough to let them live a little in this quiet, quiet world.

Isovele pokes her head into the main holoprojector room and the sight within sets a blazing warmth in her chest.

Sleeping bags, obviously borrowed from the travel packs in the temple’s basement, are scattered around the room, some occupied by more than one young Jedi–some don’t have sleeping bags, but have taken the blankets from their dormitory bunks and are sharing them two or three in one, huddled together, looking around fearfully. Some of their eyes land on her as she makes a beeline from the doorway to the massive holoprojector, and there’s suspicion in a few of their eyes, but Isovele discards her hurt and hooks up her borrowed datapad instead.

Master Surik wasn’t using it for anything this important, anyway.

A chorus of gasps echo around the room as the noise from the holonet show Isovele found starts up, a jaunty tune with words that some of the younger Jedi in training seem to know by heart. There is laughter and groaning at the dry humor in its dialogue Isovele is only half listening to, and lively discussions happening all around the room, and not one word is related to the serenity and peace of the Force.

For the first time, there is _noise_ on Tython, and it fills in some of the hairline cracks in Isovele’s heart.

Fatigue burns in her eyes the next day and she can see a few of the Jedi she recognized from the night before stumbling a little in their lessons, but there’s a new energy to them that leaves an extra lightness in their steps, in the motions of their hands, in the grins on their faces.

Isovele keeps the datapad, and downloads another show.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been resolving to use my AO3 more lately and I churned this out at 3 in the morning, but it turned out pretty good. There might be more of Isovele on here in the near future, whether in WfaE or in her own short fics.


End file.
